


The Inside Voice

by Jewels (bjewelled)



Category: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 04:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjewelled/pseuds/Jewels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set amidst Chapter 2, spoilerific, about some of the thoughts going through the IA's head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Inside Voice

"Agent? Are you well?"

The ship was becoming more crowded, though few would have called three people a crowd. So, whereas once she would have sat for hours in the main living area alone, now it wasn't long before someone would pass through, and be able to see her sitting there on the couch, elbows on her knees and her head bowed. She felt like there was a heavy weight on her shoulders, pressing down, and if she hadn't been unsettled by what awaited her in sleep, she might have tried to nap.

For now, she was keeping herself going with a watered down assortment of stims that kept her awake for as many hours out of the day as possible before it became a biological necessity to sleep. She wondered if Doctor Lokin had noticed what she was doing with his medical supplies. He had yet to say anything, if so.

Vector's voice brought her head up. He was staring down at her with that depthless gaze of his, an abstract expression of concern on his face.

There was something soothing about the unbroken blackness about his eyes. One of the more peculiar things she'd had to get used to when she'd left Chiss space were the odd little coloured dots in people's eyes that moved around as they looked in different directions. It was so obvious where they were looking that it was slightly unsettling.

Cipher Nine took a deep breath, and tried to force all the words she wanted to say past the blockage in her throat.

_I've been brainwashed._

_The Empire betrayed me._

_I'm going to kill the people who did this to me._

The words hit the part of her brain that had been conditioned and somehow became, "I'm fine, Vector. You needn't worry about me."

Vector didn't look convinced. His brow furrowed ever so slightly and he sat down next to her on the couch. "Your song is discordant, a minor key. At first we assumed it was to do with the duality of your current assignment, but we fear it is something graver than this."

_I gave my loyalty to the Empire, and this is how they repaid me._

"Do you remember the leave after we fought Darth Jadus?"

Vector looked curious, but nodded. "I do."

Kaliyo had decided to take some time on Nar Shaddaa raising hell and drinking several bars dry. Vector had gone on his pilgrimage to try to discover the lost Kilik colonies, and Cipher Nine herself had gone to the Imperial fleet for some R&R that had been cut short by new orders. "How long did it last?"

"Thirty three days."

Cipher Nine knew that. She'd seen the dates herself. She'd had a nagging sense that the time had barely passed at all, that she'd not done anything in over a month of hanging around the recreational decks of the Imperial fleet. She'd had vague plans of meeting up with some of her 'friends' in the fleet (though an agent didn't really have friends so much as useful contacts that thought they were special), and she'd been surprised how much time had passed when she'd rendezvoused with Vector before heading to Nar Shaddaa to get Kaliyo.

She'd put it down to exhaustion, but maybe that was where Intelligence had grabbed her, had brainwashed her. Had she struggled, put up a fight, or agreed to the procedure for the good of the Empire? Surely they wouldn't have wiped her memory if she'd been agreeable.

_I can't trust Intelligence anymore._

People had a habit of messing with her memory. She remembered a brief and unremarkable meeting with Darth Jadus in his chambers, but if what had happened later was any indication, something much more complicated must have taken place.

_I should have listened to Watcher X._

"I envy you."

If Vector was at all perturbed by her constant shifts in conversational direction, he gave no sign. Whether that was an aspect of his experience as a diplomat or as a human-turned-alien, she had no idea. He remained silent, perhaps wondering where she was going.

"The sense of community you have with the other Joiners, with the Kiliks. The ability to understand each other, to trust each other." She leaned back on the couch and looked at him sideways. "I glimpsed that much at the celebration. You looked like you were having fun."

The Kilik celebration she'd gone to out of a sense of curiosity, of wanting to know. Sometimes, she wondered, if she'd had more patience with the bullshit of politics whether she would have become a diplomat. Instead, she tended to shoot problems in the head rather than talk with them.

"You seemed to be enjoying yourself as well, if we are not mistaken."

It was true. Vector had mentioned that it was a side effect of the pheromones that had swirled in the air, which served a bonding purpose amongst Kiliks and tended to cause a sense of euphoria amongst the un-Joined (right before they _became_ Joined, apparently). After a while the evening had taken on a hazy feel, and she'd gone with the Joiners of the nest (whose name escaped her now) and they'd been unabashedly curious about her, touching her hair, her skin and voicing stories of their nest, prompting her to do the same. She'd told some meandering story about her time in Intelligence training, when she and several others had caused a planet-wide security alert and was such a source of embarrassment that Cipher Nine had sworn never to voice it in company.

Vector had to manhandle her back to the ship. She'd been lying on the floor in the Joiners quarters, giggling and rubbing her fingers against the textured flooring, head in the lap of a Joiner who had been petting her hair whilst they listened to the stories being told. She'd not felt so mellow since training, when the Intelligence trainers had dosed them with all manner of pharmaceuticals so that they would be prepared for anything that an enemy might do to them.

Kaliyo would probably never stop teasing her about the fact that he'd seemed utterly unruffled as he'd helped he back aboard whilst she looked like she'd just come off a three day bender. She had a vague recollection of giggling madly as Vector helped her to her quarters, his fingers brushing against her skin as he settled her onto her bed, and she'd woken up the morning after feeling clear headed and more relaxed than she'd felt in months.

She hadn't felt that sense of community since... well... she couldn't say since Csilla. There was a reason she'd left, after all.

"I did," she said, and smiled faintly, "It was nice."

"Agent-"

"I'm fine, Vector," she said, standing and walking away, and doing her best to ignore the way he shifted uneasily, tempted to follow her.

_I'm not fine. Help me. Please._

"Everything's okay," she said, over her shoulder, as she headed for the cockpit.


End file.
